


Of Powers & Regret

by CheerfullyCynical



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Klaus Hargreeves is a good bro, Klaus needs a hug, No Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding, Sorry can't do it, This is me getting used to these characters, but GOD do I want these group of idiots to appreciate what Klaus goes through more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 06:31:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18231194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerfullyCynical/pseuds/CheerfullyCynical
Summary: In a world where sibling love is stronger than Luther’s idiotic idea to lock Vanya in a cage, Klaus – in a sober stupor – fights with his newfound powers.Or, sibling bonding is the best bonding, Klaus' powers are out of control, and everyone needs a hug (but Klaus most of all).





	Of Powers & Regret

**Author's Note:**

> The only thing you must know before reading is that, somehow, they made Luther NOT put Vanya in a literal cell. Here's what would happen if they didn't! Enjoy!

The seven misfits of the esteemed Umbrella Academy were nearly dragging themselves to their rooms in their house _(never a home – a home was meant to feel like a safe place. Being here felt more like a war zone than an actual war zone. Klaus would know)._

Klaus giggled, nearly hysterical at the idea that they ever did _not_ considered themselves misfits. The very thought that Luther, especially, ever considered himself not an oddity was so hysterical that it gave Klaus just enough energy to keep up with Diego’s fast strides.

Klaus should have noticed that Vanya was more of a misfit than anyone.

“What could possibly be so funny?” Diego groaned, limping his way along the long halls, “Only you could laugh at this.”

“It’s just,” Klaus couldn’t contain a giggle, “it’s so ironic, you know? Daddy Dearest would have been so _pissed_ that we saved the world through the power of sibling love, am I right?”

Luther stopped so suddenly that Allison bumped into him, causing the entire party to stop. Luther, the one who nearly caused the apocalypse by locking their sis in a cage, let out an ugly chuckle. Soon, it turned nearly hysterical.

Klaus would have cheered the big guy up ( _no one was allowed to be upset in front of him)_ but he found that he honestly couldn’t care. He was simply too tired and _sober_ to deal with a nearly insane Number One.

“Move it,” Five groaned, popping ahead of the still hysterical Luther without another thought. “Nobody cause the apocalypse while I’m asleep, alright?”

And with another flash of blue light, Five was gone.

Klaus wasn’t surprised to hear his quiet footsteps in Vanya’s room instead of his own – it wasn’t a bad idea to look after their mentally unstable, near apocalyptic powerful sister.

Yeah, Klaus was for sure too sober if he was having logical thoughts.

“You good, bro?” Diego asked Luther, who was still holding on to the stairs as if his life depended on it.

Luther waved a large hand at him, “Peachy,” he breathed out, finally getting up from his spot on the stairs.

“We should be making him sleep outside,” Ben muttered, appearing next to Klaus with his arms crossed, “What he did to Vanya-”

“Too tired,” Klaus interrupted, speaking softly, “be mad later.”

Ben rolled his eyes.

Allison, who was in front of Klaus, turned towards him, brows furrowed. The bandage she had on her neck was bleeding through already. If Allison and him were closer, he would have made sure that she was alright. At the very least, he would have asked if she needed anything.

Instead, he pointed lazily to his head with his ‘Goodbye’ tattoo facing forward and declared, “the voices!” to her, a beaming smile on his face.

This time, Allison completely ignored the comment. Not exactly surprising – Allison never understood the whole ‘talking-to-the-dead’ thing. Granted, Klaus never shared anything with Allison.

Ben was the closest to Klaus…Then Diego, then Five, then… Well, he could never truly say he was close to most of his siblings.

Diego, maneuvering rather ungracefully around their large brother, lazily waved a goodbye at all of them. In another second, the door to his room slammed shut.

Klaus, less gracefully than Diego, shimmied his way around Allison and Luther and stumbled his way to his room, softly closing his door.

“ _Fuck._ ” He muttered, throwing himself onto the mattress.

As his head hit the pillow, face planted in it in fact, he thought about the past couple of hours. Well, days really.

Getting torture by two time traveling psychos, forcibly getting clean, randomly being thrown into the middle of the Vietnam War, meeting the love of his life, losing the love of his life, discovering powers he never knew about, attempting to stop his gigantic brother from making stupid decisions, dying and seeing his dear old bastard of a dad, and discovering his one, normal sister had powers that could destroy the world…

Well, Klaus had plenty of reasons to keep his face stuffed in his pillow. Yet, he shuffled to his side, wanting to make sure Ben was still with him.

Ben chose to sit on the floor. When Klaus turned towards him, he looked so angry that he didn’t dare say anything.

Or, he didn’t mean to say anything, but he was never known for being quiet.

“You wanna talk about it?” Klaus asked him, eyes barely open, “I’m like a free therapist today. Get your Medium advice while you can!”

The joke did nothing to stop the stormy look on his brother’s face. “I want to punch Luther’s teeth in.”

It was the way that Ben said it – the deadpan, emotionless punchline that had Klaus letting out a breathy laugh. “I daresay it would be therapeutic,” Klaus told him, shuffling under blankets, “And you know I’m always one to encourage righteous sibling fighting.”

“Go to sleep,” Ben ordered, glancing at the time on Klaus’ nightstand, “We’ll deal with it in the morning.”

Klaus hummed at him, “At least…” he yawned, “the dead are quite tonight.”

Klaus was asleep before Ben could say another word.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Klaus woke up to yelling.

That wasn’t quite something new.

What was new, however, was the absences of a hangover that usually went along with it.

“They’re being stupid again,” Ben complained, nonchalantly looking at various items in his room. At least he seemed calmer than last night, “Five and Luther have been going at it for at least ten minutes now, Allison is so frustrated that she’s hitting Luther, Diego is holding back Five, and Vanya hasn’t said a word.”

“So, you’re saying I don’t have to get up then,” Klaus rolled over in his bed, “Awesome.”

“Klaus!” Ben yelled, inches from his ear. Ben usually reserved that trick for some of the worse trips on drugs he had.

Klaus groaned and flipped him off. “We saved the world, let me sleep it off.”

“Mom’s making waffles.”

Klaus was on his feet in the next second, stomach already grumbling at the idea of Mom’s waffles. Another surprising fact about being sober: He woke up with _all_ of his clothes on.

_(-and without the nausea, the desperate need to get more drugs, the wild thoughts of how he could get the money… He felt weightless)._

Ben smiled, looking just as surprised at the turn of events. “Pants suit you in the morning.”

“Little shit.” Klaus grumbled, but never the less smiled. Day two of being sober, yay!

For now, he could ignore the ghost that was lingering just outside his doorway; he could let the dead kid continue his crying from another room. He wasn’t going to let the dead control his entire life anymore…

At least for today. He was going to take it one day at a time.

When Klaus made it to the kitchen, he spotted Vanya first. She looked…Better. At least, she wasn’t screaming and crying like she was last night. Klaus shuttered at the image. He couldn’t bear to see any of them like that. He couldn’t let someone else be locked up like he was.

Klaus took a seat next to her, completely ignored by the rest of his still arguing siblings. “Guten Morgen.” Klaus greeted, a little nervous at talking. He never knew if Vanya _wanted_ to talk to him.

However, Vanya smiled slightly (awkwardly, really) at him, “I don’t know German.”

Klaus put a hand to his chest dramatically, “How _dare_ you not know a language of a place that you’ve never visited.”

Vanya’s smile grew. She looked good – healthy… _Normal._

“Good morning, dear,” Mom said, sliding a plate of waffles dripping in syrup in front of him, “it’s good to see you up with everyone.”

Klaus gave her a big smile, eyes nearly filled with tears at his favorite food. “Bless the girl in the sky.”

Mom, of course, took the weird phrase without a bat of her perfect eyelashes.

“So,” Klaus said, watching lazily as Allison scribbled furiously in her notebook, “Powers, huh?”

“Really?” Ben criticized, sitting across from him, “Do you have any tact?”

Vanya’s hands curled nervously around the cup of coffee she had. “Powers.” She agreed.

As if it was the holiest of breakfasts, Klaus grabbed his sacred cup of coffee and raised it in a salute to her, “May they be used better than these assholes.”

For a moment, Vanya froze. And then, she snorted so loud that the entire room fell quiet. In another heartbeat, Vanya was laughing - she was laughing so hard that she was clutching at her sides.

Klaus, shocked at the reaction, kept his cup in the air, not moving.

The entire room seemed frozen. Yet, Vanya was the only one who was alive; it was as if they were watching a movie in front of them.

“Great,” Ben said to him, looking older than Klaus had ever seen him, “you broke her.”

Klaus hissed at him.

The action seemed to snap Vanya out of her craze. She giggled herself back to reality and grabbed at Klaus’ still raised cup. Without a word, she took a long swing of it.

“I’ll drink to that.” She muttered, smiling at him.

Klaus, glad to not have broken a sister, nodded at her, still slightly dazed. Right, Vanya was stronger than Klaus gave her credit for; his bad jokes wouldn’t brake her.

At the very least, He made Vanya laugh.

“Uh,” Diego said, but was immediately interrupted by Five.

“We need to start training.”

The light atmosphere died instantly.

Klaus groaned loudly, “Okay, _dad._ ”

Five glared at him, looking a tad more upset than Klaus liked at having been compared to their dead daddy. “Yesterday, the world was going to end. Today, we worry about when it _could_ happen.”

“Wait-Wait,” Luther said, “I thought it was over. How can the apocalypse still happen if we stopped it?”

“Because if any one of you knew anything about time travel…” Five grabbed the coffee pot from the counter and drank directly from it. Allison took it out of his hands when he tried to chug it.

“…You’d know it’s not a continuous stream.” He continued, glaring slightly at their sister, “Just because we stopped it today doesn’t mean it’s over tomorrow.”

Klaus groaned loudly again, putting his hands over his ears.

“For once,” Diego said, “I’m with Klaus.”

Klaus, unable to stop himself, swung his arm over Diego’s shoulders. “Honored, bro, that you agree with me.”

Diego shrugged him off, making Klaus pout.

“Here’s an idea,” Ben said, looking murderous as he talked over Luther and Allison’s staring and writing contest, “Why don’t you idiots ask what Vanya wants?”

Klaus looked at Vanya. She was pulling at a loose thread on her pants, twirling it anxiously between her fingers. The fact that she wasn’t actively participating in the daily sibling feud showed how often Vanya wasn’t a part of it.

Klaus grabbed his waffle from his plate and hopped away from the table, side stepping a ghost that suddenly appeared on their living room couch. Which was, in Klaus’ humble opinion, beyond rude.

“Why don’t we ask Vanya,” Klaus suggested, face full of pancake and twitching at the guy’s low moaning, “I’m not an expert, but shouldn’t the trainee get a say?”

All of their heads whipped towards him.

Klaus continued chewing, eyes focused on the dead guy with a rather ugly and gruesome bullet hole in the center of his forehead. “Do you mind?” He asked, waving his ‘Goodbye’ hand at the guy. “I’m having an _exciting_ conversation with the fam, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Who are you talking to?” Vanya asked, looking concerned.

“This _asshole_ that won’t shut up,” Klaus turned towards Ben, “Not you, of course, my darling brother.”

“Of course.” Ben echoed, coming to glare at the very same ghost. It wasn’t unlike Ben to help get rid of some of the more needy ones.

“You’re on drugs again?” Diego asked, looking furious. “I thought you sobered up.”

“I did!” Klaus cried, turning away from Ben. For a moment, he completely forgot about the wailing dead guy, “I’ve been sober two days, ass-hat! And with sobriety comes the _absolutely lovely_ whining of the dead!”

“Klaus!”

The warning did nothing to prepare him.

Klaus turned towards Ben’s voice, surprised to find it concerned, when it happened. The ghost slashed at him. Though he knew that the ghost couldn’t hurt him, he put his arm up anyway, trying to block him.

Klaus, though he didn’t expect it, _felt it._

Nails racked down his naked arm. Beyond shocked – adrenaline and fear flowing through his system - he cried out in pain and bumped into the kitchen table, his back now throbbing.

“ _Shit!”_ Both Klaus and Ben said, watching in horror as the ghost continued towards him once again, radiating a blue light.

The same blue light that was currently coming from Klaus’ hands.

“What the fu-”

But Diego was cut off by _Ben_ appearing right beside him. Diego jumped nearly five feet in the air. However, Diego was always one for a quick recovery. Faster than light, he grabbed the butter knife from the table and flung it at the ghost.

It went straight through him.

_Klaus was doing this. This was what his asshole of a father meant when he wasn’t living up to his potential. He was making the dead visible to everyone else – he was…He was giving them life._

_It felt so wrong – like his blood was boiling and his heart was going to explode._

He was shaking as if he was coming off of the worst high in his life.

“Focus, Klaus!” Someone was yelling, “Stop them!”

“ _Klaus, Klaus, Klaus…”_

But Klaus couldn’t _breathe._ The ghost who had first appeared realized what he could do. He was reaching out to Klaus, hands outstretched and so close to touching him that Klaus nearly stood up on the table in his haste to get away.

“Go away!” Klaus told him, holding his glowing hands out towards it, “ _Go away!”_

 _Something_ moved from his chest, wrapped around his arms, and spread out to his hands. The room exploded in a mess of blinding, blue light. Right before his eyes, the demon that started all of this disappeared into _ashes._

Ben, who had always been an exception in the ghost world, was flung into the living room couch. He, at least, didn’t disappear.

Suddenly exhausted, Klaus collapsed on his hands and knees, taking large gulps of air. He was wheezing, tears in his eyes as he tried to calm down. When he opened his eyes, he saw a drop of blood hit the pristine floor.

Three ugly claw marks went all the way from his wrist to the inside of his elbow. The blood was stark against his pale skin. Klaus, somehow, found it better than the blue that had flooded his vision before.

“I stand corrected,”

Five’s voice was oddly steady for a man that just got a peek at what the afterlife looked like.

 _“Klaus_ and Vanya need training.”

Klaus giggled, then laughed, then collapsed, back against the hard ground and staring emptily at the ceiling. “Yeah,” He managed to say, “Klaus says yes.”

Diego came into his view. Never before had he seen his brother shaken, but this came pretty damn close.

“W-we should let m-mom look at that,” He pointed at his injury. He winced slightly, acutely aware of his stutter.

Diego took his hand, slightly pulling to get Klaus into a sitting position. He didn’t resist at the manhandling. He was honestly too exhausted to do so.

When Klaus was sitting up, he got a front row view to his siblings reaction to such an event.

Ben, much to Klaus’ relief, looked fine. He was standing next to Diego, not glowing blue, and seemed relatively unfazed by what just happened. He was trying to touch Diego but didn’t look too disappointed when he couldn’t.

Luther, on the other hand, was silent. He hadn’t moved from his position. He also looked to be having an existential crisis. However, ever _Number One,_ he was in front of Allison, quite literally shielding her with his body.

Five had acquired the entire pot of coffee once again. When Klaus looked closer, he realized he too was shaking.

Allison, meanwhile, looked…Upset? She was crying, putting most of her weight on the table. That reaction was certainly unexpected. What did she have to be upset about? It couldn’t have been about his wellbeing.

Vanya was in a similar state. She had planted herself on one of the kitchen chairs, shaking, still looking at the spot that had once had ghost directly from hell. At least her powers hadn’t… Done anything.

“You feeling alright, bro,” Diego asked him, turning his arm this way and that too get a better look at the injury. He grabbed a napkin from the table and held it against the cuts, “You’re not looking too great.”

Klaus laughed, “You just got a peak into the world of ghosties!”

Ben rolled his eyes.

Diego’s grip on his wrist got slightly tighter in response.

“Do they always look like that?” Vanya asked, voice nearly a whisper, “Always…”

“Dead?” Klaus asked, trying and failing to lighten the mood.

“Not human.”

Klaus deflated, air leaving him. “Not always. Ben looks pretty.”

Klaus waited for Ben to make a comment, but Ben was gone. It wasn’t unusual, especially after such a haunting event. Ben was probably checking the house, looking for more ghosts.

“So Ben was really with you,” Five asked, “All this time.”

“Uh,” Klaus said, blindsided for a moment. In all the confusion, he forgot that his siblings could be real dicks sometimes. “Yeah.”

Five nodded as if it was one of his equations that he just solved. The rest of them, meanwhile, looked ashamed. Klaus wasn’t particularly bothered by that but that could be due to the immense exhaustion he was suffering from.

Klaus got up suddenly, ignoring Diego’s whining. He took the napkin from Diego’s hands and continued applying pressure. Damn, for a dead guy, he had some killer sharp nails. By the feel of it, at least one of the scratches was going to need stitches.  

“I’ll get mom.” Luther volunteered. Klaus made his way unsteadily to the living room couch, collapsing heavily on it.

His fam moved with him, looking hesitant to crowd around him.

The silence was enough to drive him mad.

“I’d kill for some drugs.” He muttered.

“Absolutely not!”

“-Come on, Klaus, you’re doing-”

“-Do something else.”

“Alright!” He complained, putting his good arm across his face to block the light, “No drugs. Swear on our dick of a dad and all that. I pinky promise. Double pinky promise.”

Vanya, bless her heart, immediately looped her pinky around his own. The action brought a shaky smile to Klaus’ face. “Thanks, V.”

Footsteps echoed in the room and the sound of mom’s heels clicked on the floor.

“Oh dear,” Their mother said, voice pleasantly sweet in the awkwardness of everything around them, “Don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ll have that fixed up in a jiffy.”

“Thanks, mom,” Diego said for him, helping their mother with the medical kit.

There was silence once again as mom lightly tugged the napkin out of his grasp. It wasn’t weird for any of them to see each other injured and being patched up, but it had certainly been a while.

“Are they always so loud?” Luther asked suddenly.

The fact that Luther asked had everyone turning their heads towards him. He flushed under the attention. “What? I’m just!”

Klaus spared him. “Some of them are experts! I mean, I had this opera dude in a rehab center that _wouldn’t shut the fuck up._ And he _sucked_ at opera, which was honestly the funniest part of it all. Ben was ready to sock the guy after day three.”

“But the wailing,” Vanya whispered, just as mom stuck some sort of antiseptic on his arm. Klaus flinched, missing part of what she was saying. “-at once?”

Ben reappeared, looking relieved. It was relieving to see him if Klaus was being honest. “She’s asking if they all sound like that at once.”

“Oh,” Klaus said, looking away as their mom put thread in the needle. “It can get pretty loud.”

They waited for more, but Klaus wasn’t quite ready to share that much about it. It was shitty, it ruined his childhood, he didn’t need to share that with the rest of the gang.

The rest seemed to understand his reluctance, once again looking guilty.

Ben looked impressed. “About time they understood.” he muttered.

Klaus pouted at him but ended up actually wincing as the needle moved in and out of his skin. Someone poked at him, making him open his eyes. Allison held up her notebook.

‘Sorry’ it read.

Klaus waved her off, “I should be apologizing. I didn’t know I could _do_ that.”

“It makes sense,” Five said, voice clinical, “Your powers are like Vanya’s – they work when you're emotional. The drugs were holding you back.”

Vanya looked at Klaus just as Klaus turned his gaze towards her. They both smiled.

“Emotional buddies!” Klaus cried, holding out a fist bump. Klaus, ever the dramatic, did one single jazz hand as Vanya pulled away.

Five rolled his eyes at his antics. “Bunch of idiots.”

“Aw,” He cooed at him, “but we’re _your_ idiots!”

Five, in all his thirteen-year-old looking glory, stuck his tongue out at him.

The action was so shocking that all of them burst into laughter. For once, in a house filled with nightmares, they all found some solace in a moment.

Only this group of idiots would find peace in the house that caused them so much pain.

As mom finished up his arm, Klaus muttering good naturally about such a wicked scar he was going to have, all of them planned out a schedule to help both Vanya and Klaus.

As it turned out, everyone had lives outside of the Umbrella Academy (shocker) so it was decided that they would meet up twice a week at the Academy.

Vanya, meanwhile, offered her couch to Klaus. It came at such a nice surprise that Klaus couldn’t say no. Five decided to stay at the Academy. He ended up visiting them nearly every day, demanding that they buy coffee for him.

Life, though crazy, was getting just a little bit better for the rag tag team of misfits.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was honestly created so I could get used to all these amazing characters. Each one has their own backstory, which makes them SO HARD to write. It would be super helpful to hear how I did! Thank you for reading!!!


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